[Python-Dev] [Pydotorg] Should we help pythonmac.org? (original) (raw)

Fred Drake fdrake at acm.org
Tue Aug 19 17:00:39 CEST 2008

[Removed pydotorg from the recipients; this has nothing to do with the
website.]

On Aug 19, 2008, at 10:51 AM, Jesse Noller wrote:

Just to add to this - with the advent of PEP 370[1], we now have the ability to use per-user site-packages directories. This neatly sidesteps the problem (for the most part) of tainting the system installations of python directly.

True. This can help with newer Pythons. It doesn't really deal with
having multiple Python versions, IIRC.

As for the Mac issue - as a mac user/developer - I only install "big ticket" packages into the system path - for everything else, I either use virtualenv.py, a custom python install or the PYTHONPATH overrides.

I've no idea what a "big ticket" package would be. Using zc.buildout
nicely sidesteps any issues of installing into the Python
installation, and caches expensive builds.

I've personally never used a python distribution from macports or fink - if I need a custom build, I'll do it myself, rather than install something into the /opt/ tree macports uses - I've had too many issues with library/binary conflicts with the pre-installed libraries/tools from twiddling with PATH and LDLIBRARYPATH to add the /opt tree to my environment in order to get compiles/tools to play nice.

I'd go so far as to say that any reliance on LD_LIBRARY_PATH is a bad
idea, since it's horribly fragile. But I do link in the readline from
macports.

-Fred

-- Fred Drake

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list